


Sing For Me

by miihakeka



Series: the songs of angadur [1]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Culture building, Everything Will Be Explained, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Build, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 06:08:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3967336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miihakeka/pseuds/miihakeka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love for elves was always supposed to be a quiet, contented rhythm, never a roaring symphony that consumed everything in its path. But things have never really seemed to go right for Celebrimbor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing For Me

**Author's Note:**

> Necessary disclaimer: I wrote this in reaction to a set of daily prompts I started doing. Before I knew it, it turned into the first chapter of this fic, which is one I've been planning for a while. Therefore, I've decided to post it, because now I have it -- why not? However, I doubt that regular updates of this one will begin until I've gotten farther in the first posted fic of the series, possibly even until I've finished writing that one. If you want to assure yourselves that Sing For Me will eventually be updated, please check out The Slightest Slip, also in this series, and my current focus.

“... and so atar1 said to me, ‘Ha! You’d best hope that you’re not like me. But I will wish you a happy wedding anyway.’

“‘What do you mean, atar?’ I replied. I was a bit affronted, you see, that atar thought I ought not to be like him. I had spent most of my life preparing to fill his role as king, after all. Do you know what he said to me?”

Tyelpë shook his head. Technically, he knew, his name was Telperinquar. But he thought that sounded too fancy for a twenty-four year old, and ‘Tyelpë’ was easier to say anyway. “No, haru2. Tell me!”

“Well,” said haru, “atar went on to explain how he didn’t truly _have_ a One.”

“He didn’t!” Tyelpë cried. “How could that be? He must have been married, or he wouldn’t have had you, haru.”

Tyelpë’s haru shook his head gently. The braids before his ears swayed back and forth, ornaments glittering in the crystal-light of the tent. “I’m still not sure if I understand ‘how’, myself,” he said. “But I do know what he meant, now. It seems that most elves feel some sort of deep connection with their One. They know them the instant they see them, and they can even sometimes sense when they’re near after they marry. Atar never felt that connection.”

“But he married anyway?” Tyelpë frowned, confused. “How could he have married someone who _wasn’t_ his One?”

“I asked him that very question. He said, ‘I married her because I loved her, and I wanted to be with her. And as time passed I loved them no less, but something... changed. I have never been able to put it to words, but something which had been there went away, and she noticed it as surely as I did. It did not bother me too much, because I could feel that my love had grown no less, but it left her distraught. Nothing I could do would bring her comfort. She left.’”

Tyelpë wrinkled his nose. “Haru, this is a sad story. Why are you telling it to me?”

“It’s an explanatory story, little silver-hand,” haru said. More gently, he added, “You asked why haruni3 didn’t come with us.”

Tyelpë’s eyes widened. “Oh,” he said. “Did...”

“Indeed,” haru said. “It was just as atar had described to me. I could even feel the something leaving, though my emotions hadn’t changed. It was a most unusual feeling. Haruni wasn’t pleased, but we had all your uncles to look after, so at least she didn’t leave like atar’s wife.” He paused for a moment, face darkened. Tyelpë busied himself with playing with his braids until haru spoke again. “I’d like to think that I had managed to explain things to her, but she still decided not to come with us.”

Tyelpë nodded solemnly. “Haruni didn’t want to leave Valinor.”

“No, she did not.”

“Why?”

Haru sighed and ran a hand through his hair. The braids were coming loose in the back, Tyelpë noticed. He wondered if he should tell atar when he came to pick Tyelpë up. “Ask me that question later,” said haru, “when you’re closer to fifty.”

“But that’s forever and ages away!”

“Oh, it’s closer than you think, little silver-hand,” haru said, laughing. “Soon you’ll be asking me why you’re not in your twenties anymore.”

Tyelpë tried to pout, but he noticed the loose braids again, and they reminded him of his atar again. Suddenly he had an idea. “Is that why I don’t have an ammë4?” he asked. “Because atar is the same way you and grand-haru are?”

“N -- ” haru started, but then stopped abruptly, staring at the ceiling of the tent. “... Eru’s foot,” he muttered. “That _would_ make sense... Tyelpë,” he said, turning to the young elf with a grin, “I do believe you’ve beaten your haru to an answer for once. I expect a growth spurt soon, understand?”

“Yes haru,” Tyelpë grinned right back. But then another thought struck him as quick as the first, and his grin dropped. “But -- haru, if my atar is like that, and _you’re_ like that, and _your_ atar is like that... does that mean I won’t have a One either?” He didn’t want to go through life without a One! And he definitely didn’t want to fall in love with someone like haru and grand-haru had, only to have them leave again.

There was silence for a moment. Then haru sighed. “Come here,” he said, spreading his arms and beckoning Tyelpë closer. Normally Tyelpë would have protested that he was too old now to sit in his haru’s lap, but he felt like he might cry, and it was nicer to cry while being held. Haru hugged him as soon as he was situated, his long braids tickling Tyelpë’s ears. “I do not know if you are like us, little silver-hand,” he said. “I won’t lie to you -- I think there’s a good chance of it. But nobody really knows anything about this little family issue of ours, and so I also think there’s a chance that you _will_ find a One someday.”

Tyelpë sniffled. “Really?”

“Of course,” said haru. Then he shook a finger in Tyelpë’s face. “Still! You should always keep in mind that you might be like us. But if that turns out to be the case, then at least you will have all of our stories to help you handle it. Remember that.”

“Okay,” said Tyelpë, nodding. “I can do that.”

“Of course you can.”

“... haru?” Tyelpë asked after a moment of watching the lamp crystals pulse. “If I don’t have a One, I’ll know what to do because of you and atar and grand-haru. But if I do have a One, nobody will know what I should do. How will I know?”

“Hmmm,” haru said. “Well, I know that most elves seem to automatically know what to do when they find their One. It may be that you won’t need advice.”

“But?” Tyelpë pressed.

“But, I think that I may be able to give you some, just in case,” said haru. “I think, Tyelpë, that if you find your One, you must tell them and let them know how you feel. Follow them to the ends of the earth if you must, but you should follow them, and do not abandon them because you are uncertain or doubtful. You would be the first of your father-line to have a One, and I believe we would all exhort you to make as much of your luck as you can.”

They sat in silence then for a while, Tyelpë playing idly with one of the clasps on haru’s braids that had fallen over his shoulder. Soon enough his atar came back from his errands to retrieve Tyelpë -- and though occasionally Tyelpë ruminated on his haru’s story, as he grew older, and one thing led to another in war and politics, the tale, like most tales his haru had told him, fell from his consideration.

.oOo.oOo.

Many years passed then, until Tyelpë had almost forgotten the advice his haru had given him one night when he was twenty-four. He had, for the most part, resigned himself to the life of Onelessness that had plagued his forefathers, back to the very first elf of the line who had been made and not born. There was a sort of freedom in it, he had found, especially when he knew with the forewarnings of his haru (his atar had always refused to speak of his experience) that he could not expect people to just accept it and move on. He wore gloves much of the time, even when he was not in the forges or at work in the shop. The Gwaith-i-Mírdain prospered -- in a way, he supposed, he could consider the organization his child. It was not exactly the ideal life, but it satisfied him. Though it was not without its occasional annoyances...

“Lord Celebrimbor,” one of the assistants knocked on his door. “There is a strange elf in the council chambers, requesting leave to stay with the guild. Lord Seregyn wants you there to help in the deliberations.”

“Of course he does,” Tyelpë muttered. He sometimes thought that Seregyn would never allow a decision to be made by him alone if his life depended on it. There always needed to be a co-decider to potentially take the fall. Sighing, he capped his inkwell and rested the quill atop it, before striding past the assistant and towards the council chambers. “What is this elf’s name?” he asked as he passed her.

“Eh... Annatar, I think?”

“Hmmm,” Tyelpë hummed to himself. Annatar -- an odd name for an average craftsperson. He had been receiving a number of alarmist missives from Galadriel recently, concerning a mysterious elf who had approached Lórien seeking to stay in their kingdom and set up trade with the local blacksmiths. She had apparently turned the elf out, and promptly seen fit to warn the other elven lords of Eriador about them. Tyelpë had little doubt that this elf -- whoever they were -- was the same one that she had turned out. He had already sent requests for more information from Gil-Galad and Elrond -- while Gil-Galad had simply echoed Galadriel’s misgivings (typical, Tyelpë thought rather viciously), Elrond had been less vitriolic and more diplomatic, though still cautious. But he had also admitted that he had little to offer, having never encounted the unknown elf himself. And Tyelpë...

Well. He wasn’t unfamiliar with pasts hidden, or avoided as much as possible. Whatever Galadriel’s misgivings, he was not in her service, and he would make his own judgements. ‘Annatar’, though... the name struck him as a bit presumptuous, or at the very least indicative of a slight ego. Well, maybe the assistant had misheard? It would not do, Tyelpë thought, to turn the stranger out if they seemed in no way malicious. His mind already mostly made up, he quickened his pace down the stairs to the council room, hand trailing along the intricately marbled and engraved stonemasonry of the walls. Finally reaching the bottom, he made his way along a hallway to the doors, making a brief but futile effort to smooth his robes as he did so.

Well, nobody had ever said that they expected the leader of a craftsguild to be dressed in finery at a moment’s notice...

... Was that... _music_ he heard from the council chambers?

It sounded beautiful. Unknowingly, Tyelpë quickened his steps, thoughts of presentation slipping away in the face of the tune that grew veritably louder as he approached, until it was almost deafening -- and yet the attendants were motionless, giving no sign that they heard a thing. Tyelpë was not even sure if the music was in his ears, for they felt curiously empty. But the music was there -- it was around him, dips and crescendoes and trills glancing across his skin. He almost felt he could reach out and touch a weaving line of harmonies should he wish to, as though the hall had been flooded with liquid music and he was swimming through it. All thoughts of the meeting and the projects waiting for him in his study fled. He wanted to -- he wanted to sink to the floor and sit in that music, he wanted to feel it moving through him, he wanted to float with it, to float in it. He wanted --

“Lord Celebrimbor?” An arm grabbed his, and after the music, the touch of another elf felt so foreign that Tyelpë felt momentarily nauseus. Then he realized that he had been swaying on his feet as though near collapse -- how could he not have noticed that? “Are you alright?” the attendant asked, brow furrowed. “If you’ve stayed up for nights at a time again I’m sure the rest of the council would not begrudge you your rest -- we could tell them -- ”

Tyelpë gripped the arm back. It took too long to locate his own two feet, and even longer to steady them firmly against the stone floor exactly below him. The music danced still through him, impossible to ignore, but just barely possible to focus through with the other elf’s touch upon his arm. His tongue lay nerveless in his mouth, and words came not to him. He could barely think. “I am... fine to attend,” he managed to get out. “But... you are right. I ought... no.” The phrase aborted. He could not remember what he had been trying to say as a string of notes wound its way around his chest. “I fear I will fall if I do not have help. Will you?”

“Of course,” said the attendant firmly, and the sound of a real voice cut through the fog of music in Tyelpë’s head, at least a little bit. In the moment of clarity he distantly wondered what was wrong with him, but soon another harmony materialized and he lost himself to it.

Then the attendant opened the door.

Even the touch of another upon his arm was not enough to protect Tyelpë from this renewed onslaught. The music pounded within his ears, within his ribs, sending vibrations up and down his spine. The symphony consumed him, the harmonies -- blearily he counted them, or tried to, reached ten before he gave up nowhere close to done -- there were so many, he did not understand how they could meld together into a single line when each was near as complex as he would expect a single elvish symphony to be, but mesh they did, and so beautifully at that. The music covered him and flowed through him and absorbed him. He couldn’t have escaped even if he had wanted to, even as the music burned its way through him, hot as the forges in the workshops, hotter even, fire and lava and molten metals chewing their way through his body.

He could not remember --

\-- what was his _name_?

.oOo.oOo.

Tyelpë’s body folded and sank to the floor of the council chambers, unconscious. He did not, ultimately, attend any meeting that day.

__________

1'father' in Quenya

2'grandfather' in Quenya

3'grandmother' in Quenya

4'mother' in Quenya

**Author's Note:**

> Tyelpë is 24, the elf equivalent of about 7, in the first section, which takes place during the first age. (It's the only Fëanor we'll get in this fic, sorry.) The next portion takes place much later, during the second age, but I'm sure everyone figured that out. In this au, Tyelpë was born in Valinor, but the Exile happened real quick after that and he barely remembers the place as he gets older.
> 
> Even though others will usually call him 'Celebrimbor' during this period, Tyelpë still thinks of himself as Telperinquar, and thus as the preferred nickname Tyelpë, so when I write in his pov he'll be referring to himself as Tyelpë even if others address him as Celebrimbor.
> 
> This whole chapter ties heavily into my Taintverse-based rationale for elven pairbonding. They're pretty much hypermonogamous and nearly always mate for life, with a few exceptions like Finwë and Finwë's line of descendants. There's a whole set of metabiological reasoning for why this is and how such intense pair bonds form sitting on my tumblr for those who are interested, including a short section on why Tyelpë reacts the way he does: ' fuckyeah-valarin (dot) tumblr (dot) com (slash) post (slash) 119010604655 (slash) why-elves-are-hypermonogamous '.


End file.
